Thaleia

Rainbow Themed Busy Bags

March 11, 2014 By Thaleia 7 Comments

Woohoo! It’s almost St. Patrick’s Day and all things Rainbow-right? You may have little one’s aching for some new Busy Bags. Well, you need to gather all the rainbow colored items around your house and make up some super fun Rainbow themed activities.

I know that we need to freshen up our Busy Bag collection as Spring comes. We will begin to be in the car more running errands, attending programs, and heading to the park. Gotta keep those little ones learning and engaged at a drop of the hat. Here are some of my favorite ideas via Pinterest!

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Boost Your Blog-Twitter Tips

March 10, 2014 By Thaleia 5 Comments

Welcome to Boost Your Blog in 100 Days! I’m so excited you have chosen to take this journey with me and my dear challenge hostesses! I hope to get to meet you a little bit along the way via facebook, twitter, pinterest, and your blogs. My goal for this 100 days is to spruce up our blogs together and kick our usage and understanding of Social Media into high gear.

Guess what folks? Hackers happen to the best of us. Cat’s chew power cords and kids have birthdays. Yep all real-life events that are going on this week around the #BB100 Challenge! I’m pinch blogging so to speak until Honey can safely access her blog again! I promise Honey will catch everyone up to speed on all the awesome tweetiness (just made this up:) she had planned for us all to learn, but for today you have me!

Since I am no way a guru for Twitter and had no intention of teaching anyone about Twitter anytime soon here goes. Some of my favorite Twitter tips from around the web. (Sorry Honey but I had to give these dear folks something).

Here a quick Twitter checklist off the top of my head:

1. What is your Twitter Handle? Your @something2offer.com_______. Does it reflect your blog or brand or platform?

2. Do you have a picture? Is it current?

3. Did you fill in info. on your profile? You gotta have something relevant so people know why they should follow you.

4. Remember Twitter is NOT IM! Yes, tweets go out quickly but please do not tweet just to tweet! YES, reply with a thoughtful comment. YES, Retweet when you see something worth sharing. Please do not reply to everything from everyone.

5. Keep your tweets to 100-120 characters. Use a url shortener like Hoot or Bitly so your characters are eaten by the url.

6. Find a few people from your niche to follow. Engage them by replying or asking them a question. Mention a post you read that was interesting, etc.

Okay, that’s all I got for now. I smell a delicious Chicken Asparagus Dinner calling my name! Check out some more twitter tips below AND watch out for #BB100 TWEETS!

Take the following tips and ideas for what they are worth. I just did a quick google search and read through these quickly to make sure they weren’t totally ridiculous.

10 Twitter Tools to Organize Your Tweeps

The Twitter Followholic: An Epidemic

Safety tips for parents

How Twitter can help your business

Boost Your Blog in 100 Days- Day 21 TWITTER

March 7, 2014 By Thaleia 3 Comments

Today starts Challenge 3- Twitter! Your hostess for the next 10 days will be Honey from Honey’s Life. Be sure to head on over for Day 21 of Boost Your Blog.

Want an email reminder when a new Boost Your Blog challenge goes live ? Sign-up!

Twitter Tips! Free Twitter Tips!

On your mark, get set, TWEET! This next 10 days you will be learning from Honey all about Twitter! Lots of great tips and tricks for Twitter including hashtags, advertising, what makes a good tweet, what program to use, and how often to re-tweet will be covered. Are you ready for the tweeting journey of a lifetime? Fly right over to Honey’s site to join in on all the tweeting fun.

Have you ever joined a Twitter party? Did you follow along or feel lost? What program did you use to follow: Hoot, TweetDeck, Tweet Chat? Got general Twitter questions. HONEY HAS ANSWERS! Please leave comments and questions here or on Honey’s blog.

Middle School & High School Online Homeschool Communities

March 5, 2014 By Thaleia 5 Comments

So you have a child in High School or Middle School. Have you ever wondered where to connect online? Believe it or not there are TONS of quality places for older students to connect online. Online homeschool communities offer all sorts of learning and socialization opportunities.

I have found blogrolls, link-ups, weekly challenges, and a few online communities. All of these have their own unique qualities and variety of security level. If you blog about homeschooling then you may want to link up your blog to the CC or Apologia Blog roll-IF you use those curriculum. If you have a blog then your children may want to participate in the writing challenge linkup. Mom’s feel free to stop by the Finishing Strong Link-up to share ideas or get ideas on Middle school and High School!

Blog Rolls- these are places that list blogs that pertain to a certain Curriculum, Topic, or Theme:

If you are a blogger, blog about homeschooling, and use Classical Conversations (at home or in a community), please share a link to your site! (CC Community sites are welcome to link-up with us as well!)

In light of our focus on Classical Conversations Community, let’s get to know one another!

As well as a place to link up your main blog page, you can now link up specific posts that you write related to the Apologia curriculum. Share experiments, projects, activities, or anything related to your experience using the Apologia curriculum. That way we all can connect with other Apologia users, see how others are using this curriculum, gain ideas, advice and tips for projects and experiments, or to simply find fellowship.

Link-ups- these are places where anyone that homeschools and blogs can link up their related content or participate in a weekly challenge:

It’s a place where you can share posts about high school curriculum plans, a wrap up of your week with your high schoolers, activities that you added to your high school curriculum… anything high school. Link up old posts if you have them. They will still be of help to someone who needs a hand. Link up new posts as you go through the year. Share your struggles.

Middle and High School Linkup for Students and Moms!

This creative writing linkup is for Middle and High School student bloggers (and their moms). We would love if you could link back to the linkup (however, it is not a requirement). Use the code above to add to your post to let others know about the linkup.

Every Tuesday I post a new sketch assignment on the Harmony Art Mom blog. Everyone is welcome to sketch and you do not need to sign up to participate. You can participate every week or as often as you wish since there is no commitment. I try to make the assignments open-ended so your child can interpret the assignment in a way that works for them. Parents are welcome to sketch and submit to the slideshow too.

Every Wednesday, we invite you to share your posts that focus on educating these higher grades. We’re looking for curriculum ideas, unique learning approaches, encouragement, and more. Really, any post that focuses on homeschooling middle & high school students.

Each month in the coming school year, we will be hopping around some of the web’s best and brightest high school homeschooling blogs to share tips, resources, and encouragement on all things high school homeschooling!

Thankfully, homeschoolers aren’t shy – – we LIKE sharing! So, please join us on our journey, and maybe even hop right along with us!!!

Facebook Community:

Mostly for the parents but still worthy of mentions.

ADVENTURES IN HOMESCHOOLING

Blogging Homeschoolers

Christian Homeschooling Middle and High School

Christian Homeschooling Moms

Christian Unschooling

Frugal Homeschooling Moms

Homeschool co-op and freebies

Homeschool Giveaways

Homeschooling with Pinterest

Homeschooling, Unschooling, Uncollege, Opt Out, DIY, Online Learning

Google+ Community:

Pinterest Community:

Follow Thaleia @something2offer.com Something2Offer’s board Homeschool Highschool on Pinterest.

FORUMS:

Five in a Row

Well Trained Mind

Here’s my affiliate link to Great Homeschool Conventions! If you click on the picture and register for a convention our family earns a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support!

(Disclosure: There are affiliate links within this post. The links provide a way for us to support our site and provide great ideas and content to you! Thanks for your support.)

Reasons Why You SHOULD Visit a Nature Center

February 28, 2014 By Thaleia 2 Comments

Reasons Why You SHOULD Visit a Nature Center This Year!

I love nature. I love Nature Center’s and FREE Programs. I try to DRAG (sometimes almost literally!) my children to Nature programs as much as possible. (They really do enjoy them but not in all sorts of weather like their mom). I’m the nature nut of my family so to speak but that is fine with me.

We finally made it to our local nature center’s (Brukner Nature Center) monthly program called Creature Feature. We became member’s of our local nature center via a coupon offer back in the Summer, but with a new baby venturing out has been limited.
It was a 60 minute program all about one type of animal. A great in-depth introductory to the critter of the month so to speak. Eldest is going to create a video to show with you all about the Saw-Whet Owl.

We all wanted to share our reasons to visit a Nature Center:

Get up close to animals.

Hands-on activities. Feeling feathers, exploring bones, viewing fossils are all apart of what ours has to offer right in the main entry!

Talk with experts and enthusiasts. If you spend any amount of time at a nature center then you are sure to run into somone who will bend your ear. You may get a tall tale or lots of details and information.

Learn something new each time.

Free and Cheap programs. Sunday is free day for anyone to visit Brukner Nature Center!

Great place to volunteer. Our local nature center allows volunteers as young as 11 years old.

Follow Thaleia @something2offer.com Something2Offer’s board Nature Study & Crafts on Pinterest.

Find a Nature Center near you!

How often do you or your children explore nature?